There's a reason why this journal is entitled "Queer Thinker"...other than the obvious. If you want to read the thoughts of a black, gay law student who seems to think differently, i.e. "queer," than others, this one's for you!

Monday, April 21, 2008

The Black Student Org is Anti-Western

Apparently, a bill in Arizona started by--naturally--a Repughblican seeks to do away with groups like the Black Business Students Association because all they do in those kinds of groups is sit around, talk about how they hate America and how to take America down. Oh, you didn't know they did that in the Black Business Students Association? Oh, yeah, man. I know when I went to the Black Law Students meetings, we'd just sit with a dry-erase board, take ideas for how we're going to murder everyone working for the US government and then take over, changing all the American values that whites--err, all Americans--have worked hard to instill in everyone, including people in other countries who think the US is so much better than everywhere else. Yep, sometimes we even went into elementary schools or invited kids to the campus so that we could teach them all things "anti-Western," from how baseball sucks to inequality is real in the US to how Columbus didn't really discover America because you can't discover something when other people are already there once you get there. Nah, eff the West, man. We're going to take over and force everyone to get "authentic" African hairstyles, all guys have to walk around with their clothes hanging off--you know, because that's what they do in Africa. All women have to roll their necks, get up in your face and yell all loud with a finger about to poke your eye out--also done in Africa. All kids have to get up and sing every...single...word straight from memory when "their song" comes on the radio or TV but still go to school and flunk their reading and spelling tests because they can't read. Again, Africa. Hopefully, in time, whites, Asians and Latinos will see what we've done as American values. Hey, why not? It worked for whites when they "discovered" America. Apparently, whites figure that if their ancestors did it, why would it be so far-fetched that blacks, Asians and/or Latinos are sitting around in their racial/ethnic organizations planning to do it? Hmmm, but they're the only ones allowed to do stuff like that. It's "manifest destiny" or "survival of the fittest" and all that when they do it--it's something great to be taught in the US History. But if another group is teaching anything like that, then it's anti-Western, cause for concern, to the point of passing bills and doing anything possible to keep others from doing it. It's basically all here.

First of all, as much as I think racial & ethnic organizations should sit down and come up with ways to either smash so-called American values because they're really nothing but white standards or figure out how to get into power in the US, this is not what people do in these organizations. Second, this has been an issue for a long time now--whites have opposed these kinds of organizations for a long time. Now I'm finally starting to see why--it's fear. Apparently, they have no idea what goes on in these meetings, but because whites have done the worst they assume we're trying to. It's also an indirect admission that whites have more status and power, and they're worried one of the less powerful races is plotting to take all that away. The funny thing is it seems usually whites are, at the very least, told they're welcome at these meetings. The overwhelming majority just never come. If they really wanted to know what went on, they'd come to a meeting. Then they'd see orgs like the Black Business Students Whatever are usually never more than, at worst, some kind of "let's see who is black enough because they're here and who's not black enough because they're not so we can talk crap about them after the meeting" thing...at medium, a "holy sh!t, hardly anyone at this school is of my background, and experience tells me that unless I find some black people quick I'm not going to have very many people to socialize with" thing...and at best, 1) it's about planning and having social events that are the black equivalent to those little drunken parties or bar-hopping events white people have but don't invite us to--or sometimes do but we feel incredibly awkward at them--and 2) it's about half-hearted efforts to get us in touch with alumni and other networks, and give very basic career advice, study advice, etc. You can argue that racial pride fits in somewhere, but I don't even buy that--these organizations are almost strictly social. Trust me, nothing deep comes up most of the time, let alone "seditious teachings." And, honestly, this is part of the reason why I don't participate in these kinds of organizations. If they had real discussions about ANYTHING, I'd be there...but since they just want to socialize I say, hey, I've found the few people I like and want to hang out with here.The medium reason for racial & ethnic organizations is important, though, because it, once again, demonstrates the fact that we're not all just American. To me, there's no such thing as American values. If there were, they'd need to be about more than shoving white ideals down everyone's throats and trying to make everyone conform to and assimilate into whiteness. This bill is yet another example of that. However, I will grant you that a few American values really do exist. Probably the first and biggest one is anti-difference. If that's true, then that encompasses racism. In addition, it encompasses homophobia, sexism, classism and every other identity issue from which the US suffers. One could make an argument that if racial & ethnic orgs are stripped away, then the next thing will be GLBT orgs, women's orgs, and so on. However, if you look at the reasoning for the "anti-Western" bill...I'm not sure anyone would believe gays or women are sitting around teaching people to hate America. Furthermore, men benefit more from sex-exclusive anythings than women do...being that men are the ones who come up with dumb stuff like this bill, I don't think they're going to want to bite themselves in the @ss by coming up with something that will keep them from being able to segregate from women whenever they feel the need or to bestow benefits on other men as many all-men things do. Finally, gays and women are not cast outside of American identity the way racial minorities are, unless the gay person or woman is a racial minority. It's also because of this reason that gays and women don't really have as much of a reason to form groups to undermine white American ideals, and not many people think they do.

The fact that racism is the American way necessitates a need for racial & ethnic orgs. These groups are not the reason we're segregated; we formed these groups because of segregation. Most blacks know that you can put racial minorities in one small place together and that's not going to make us all mix. I can imagine how many blacks attend Arizona State vs how many whites do. When blacks are in environments like that, it's just a fact that the majority of them will not have as many friends as whites in those environments, and race has a lot to do with that. Although whites complain about racial & ethnic orgs and claim that they'd never be able to have a White Student Org--which, yeah, almost every org on campus is the equivalent of a White Student Org with the parallel phony "all are welcome" extension that black student orgs offer--the majority of blacks AND whites would tell you essentially that there's nothing wrong with segregation. Most whites see nothing wrong with living in all-white neighborhoods, attending all-white schools, having all-white friends and dating only whites. A lot of blacks concur. I can't tell you how Asians or Latinos feel about it. But if this is the case, then why not let blacks, Asians and Latinos have these seperate orgs? As a matter of fact, at my school, we have several Jewish orgs and I think even an Irish org. Or is it that you think we're supposed to be dying to hang out with you because you're a white God or Goddess, but you can take or leave us? Basically, doing away with these orgs will not make us become one with whites, and that's generally going to be white people's fault. And, believe it or not, take the orgs or not but you'll still have the black table, the Asian table, the Latino table. You'll still see groups of blacks clumped together, groups of Asians together. Could we not, in those instances, be denigrating America? Actually, it's more often in these kinds of gatherings than in organizations where you'll find us talking sh!t about the US. So, what to do about that? Basically, as long as you segregate from us, we'll segregate from you. If you're not going to send a white transplant over to our gatherings every single time, then you're not safe from knowing that we're not plotting against white Americans and America as we know it.

And the point about "go back to that culture"--as I was hinting at, most of the things that are stereotypical of blacks in the US have nothing to do with Africa, which people usually consider our only place of ancestry. They have nothing to do with any of my ethnicities or cultures. So, going back to Africa won't work on that one--there's nowhere we could go if our only choices were to be who we are or be like white Americans, because we are unlike any other culture. As far as Asians and Latinos who keep part of their heritage alive in the US, people can argue this is a melting pot and that different cultures is what makes America so great. I'm not disagreeing, particularly with the argument about different cultures making things better, but the fact of the matter is most people who say those things don't mean it, as demonstrated by their daily actions. The bottom line for me is everyone has the right to be who they are or who they want to be, especially without some white jackass stepping in all the time as the culture police. Besides, Asians and Latinos who grew up in the US are stuck in the middle culturally almost as much as blacks are. Finally, I usually don't use the Constitution to back up any of my arguments because I think its an imperfect document, almost to the point of being worthless. But there's another thing a lot of Americans, especially Repughblicans, like to throw in all of our faces when they're saying something others don't like--it's called the First Amendment. Once again, it's whites trying to change the rules mid-way through the game to suit their needs (which, actually, is how the courts use the Constitution, which is one reason I think it's kind of worthless). People can speak freely on their issues with the US and acknowledge that the US isn't perfect just like whites can claim all black mothers are on welfare freely and skinheads can go on hate marches in Ohio. In general, speech is protected.